Bad luck or bad choices

Sometimes, when you travel alone, you are destined to keep on that way, alone. You can't control all the odds around you, so the choices we make along the trip might get us to were we want to be, or not. They might make us feel good, or just a bit more lonely than we already are. What makes us strong however, is how well do we endure those lonely times. After my time in Bundi relating mainly with Indians, I was fond of some tourist company.

My runny nose on my arrival to Varanassi was followed by a slight fever that kept me in bed most of the three following days. Not feeling good enough to step outside the bustling city, my few excursions were only to go to the Internet and nearby restaurants to eat.

My guest house was right next to the main street, but far away from the tourist beat. Not really far away, but not in it. I depended mainly on the people I could get to meet on the streets, restaurants and my own guest house. But as I said, I didn't make a good choice in choosing it.

90% of the guests there were Israelis. That fact automatically prevents you from making any relationship within the hotel. You might try as hard as you want, but if you don't speak Hebrew, forget about it. They'll acknowledge you, but ignore you. Why would they want to talk with someone of another country if they feel in their own country when surrounded by their people? The only other foreigner I got to see was American, and he just wanted to be alone. So the only choice in meeting people was in restaurants.

The restaurants nearby weren't really crowded with foreigners, and it wasn't until I recovered from my cold that I discovered the tourist beat. It was in the Old City. The area I had discarded for two reasons. Jimmy, and eighteen year old Indian boy I met in Kudle beach recommended the Assi area, and the Lonely Planet didn't precisely recommend the Old City area, so it made sense. What a huge mistake!

Once discovered, I spent most of my time between the ghats and one of the restaurants, one of the many German Bakery's. There I wrote, I draw and I observed the people coming in and out. The usual costumers and the first timers, the foreign tourists and the Indians, the hippy dressed and "normal" dressed. The street outside was busy, not as much for the quantity of passers by, but for the narrowness of the street. Carts, motorbikes, cows, water buffalo's, tourists and locals tried to get their way, sometimes jamming the shaded streets for a couple of minutes.

But still there I wasn't lucky in the action of meeting people. I relied on getting seated with other loners as me, but generally couples seated. On one occasion I tried to make conversation with a Japanese couple. Extremely complicated. Their English was really bad. So I generally consumed my time, and myself, on drawing. Sometimes, actually, ignoring those who seated with me at the table.

I remember a night I invited to the table a couple of Spanish girls and an Argentinian man. Conversation was fluent and interesting. The guy from Argentina was dressed as a Baba. He had long dirty dreads and a dense grey and black beard. He called himself an artist, selling things wherever he went. His next destination was Italy. One of the things that shocked me the most was his stubbornness when talking about image. His image, is well-known, isn't liked in westernized countries. In his own country, he said, people look at him with repugnance. And he talks energetically and repudiates the high concept of the image in these countries. He felt good and safe in India. But he didn't realize, and didn't want to realize, for more I insisted, that he was using his image to feel that way. He depended on his image to survive in India without a coin. He got in trains for free, or got food and beverages from other Indians, just because they venerate him as a Baba. What he looked like. His tanned skin was obviously an advantage. Babas, saddhus or Holy men are at the center of Indian spirituality. They don't work, and hardly have any possessions. People give them money, food, or whatever they need. They are the wise men in Indian religion. It's amazing how hypocrites can we get to be. Repudiate a concept when it doesn't favour us, but ignore it when it plays to our advantage. How far away was this guy from the image he was giving. A kid was definitely wiser than him, at least if it's for the innocence a kid see things.

So days past by, without any new interesting acquaintances, until the time to go to Nepal.